The lowlands south of Dunedin (New Zealand), used to be almost impassable wetlands. The local Maoris were incredulous when the first Western explorers of the mid 19th century insisted on making their way tediously directly through it. There were other routes south. The wetlands were… Read more
All posts tagged “New Zealand”
Eucalyptus fossils in New Zealand – the thin end of the wedge
Eucalyptus (aka ‘gum-tree’) is the quintessential Australian tree. There are about 700 species of them today (depending on who you ask), all of them restricted to Australia, except for a couple that are in New Guinea. They range from cold mountains in Tasmania and Victoria, to… Read more
Four Degrees of Climate Change in New Zealand – should we care?
New Zealand might be a relatively lucky position as regards global warming. We mostly have a moderate, ‘maritime’ climate. Not too hot, too dry, and except for the dirty dribbles of ice we make so much of, no ice-sheets to melt. We’re not like Australia, where… Read more
New Zealand, Middle-earth and Reality
There was a time when I threatened myself to start teaching the ecology of Middle-earth. I helped take a couple of trips taking American university students around New Zealand. It was an amazing itinerary, but it came with a strong feeling that my students were… Read more
The Marshall Paraconformity – a 30 year geological debate in New Zealand
Cut back to the late 1970s – I was a schoolboy and had found my way into the Burnside Marl Pit, Dunedin (southern New Zealand) and up to the unit of greensand that is exposed on the hill side at the far end. Greensand is… Read more
Flooded Forests: sea-level rise in the Haast, West Coast, New Zealand
I own a little patch of bush in the Haast, on the wet, West Coast of New Zealand. It was selectively logged a few decades ago, which meant that the large podocarp trees were removed. It then became the edge of what was left of… Read more
Cladophlebis – New Zealand’s Mesozoic Weed
The fern Cladophlebis is probably the single-most common plant fossil in the New Zealand Jurassic. It’s present in virtually every plant fossil site of that age, so much so that Mildenhall (1974) referred to it as ‘Mesozoic weed’. When New Zealanders talk about ‘fern rock’,… Read more
Is New Zealand in the Anthropocene?
Has New Zealand recently entered an entirely new period of time? You may have caught up with the proposal that the world is now in a new era of time – the Anthropocene. Geologists have previously told us that we lived in the period called… Read more
Is New Zealand in the Anthropocene?
Has New Zealand recently entered an entirely new period of time? You may have caught up with the proposal that the world is now in a new era of time – the Anthropocene. Geologists have previously told us that we lived in the period called… Read more
Matai- vanquished giant of New Zealand’s dry forests?
I’ve long found New Zealand’s black pine, the matai (Prumnopitys taxifolia) to be a special tree. From a dishevelled juvenile, It can grow into one of our tallest and oldest plants. Its foliage, unlike the delicate feathers of its smaller relative the miro, has a… Read more